to think that facebook is responsible for a lot of hurt, heartache and upset?

[TheFemaleOfTheSpecies]

So you sign up to the exciting website that is facebook. Before too long you have found a lot of your old friends and your current friends and family, and one by one they have accepted your friend requests. As time goes by you get into the swing of things, updating your status, perhaps having a chat with a friend or two of an evening, commenting on others' statuses and generally keeping in touch with people.

And then you notice that a friend, or two, has disappeared from your friend list. And there is no explanation, no indication of why you have been dropped, you just have. You wonder whether the friends have closed their accounts, so you have a look at the friend lists of mutual friends, only to discover that they're all still friends.

You hear from a family member, her partner has been chatting to his ex who he happened to find on facebook, now the relationship is over and he's moved back in with the ex.

Then by chance you see a friend on a recommended list. A previously good friend, a much loved friend who you'd lost touch with, and eagerly you send a friend request, with a message saying how lovely it is to find them again, and eagerly anticipating catching up, you wait, and wait, and wait, but your friend request goes unanswered. And you're left wondering why.

People say "it's facebook, it's just a website. But is it? It may be a website, but those who interact there are real people. Would those same friends blank you in the street? would they say "no, sorry, I don't want to be your friend any more," to your face? or "I've decided not to be your friend." And yet the deletion of a friend, and the refusal to accept a friend request says the same thing, surely?

I agree that Facebook does cause hurt, upset & heartache. BUT its the people responsible for it. Yes FB is part to blame because if it wasnt there then heartache, upset etc etc wouldnt happen. I am on FB but i only let people on who i know. When i first joined it, i accepted anyone, so did my husband which lead to upset & heartache for BOTH of us. BUT we have learnt our lesson. I have closed my account many many time before but then opened it up again. But not now i dont allow anyone on my friends list who i do not know.

My account is private now.

MN/AIBU is much much more savage than FB IMO & I don't even know anyone on MN!

Like life, many different people with many different agenders = many different ways of using/abusing FB.

Secret to success on facebook. Only be friends with people you like.

I had a FB account for three days - that was all it took for some weird guy I once worked with to post something obscene on my wall.

He had a really crude sense of humour and I was glad to leave the job. I deleted my FB account straight after that, it was something I really didn't want in my life.

You have made me realise I didn't say a goodbye and must have left quite a few genuine friends baffled by my disappearence.

Oooops no style, no etiquette, no manners - I just deleted, but I did find it interesting that FB asks for the reason for the deletion of the account.

Top of the list is; It is causing havoc in my private life!

A lad who knows me has added me- he's very handsome and flirty, if I wasn't so self controlled it could be a disaster! Anyone want him? lol.

BUT ive had some people defriend me, decline friendship requests etc but its not the end of the world, if they dont like me they can kiss my ass quite frankly, people look into things far too much I think.

I requested a friend from school who has ignored it. She is the only close schoolfriend I have found on there (old fogey emotion). Bumped into my best friend at school the other day, we were all in the same gang, so I asked about her and said she had ignored me.

I'm just shrugging it off. TBH I was a bit of a bitch at school, not a reflection on the person I am now, so perhaps she remembers this.

I agree with Dittany - it is pretty sinister and I do sometimes wonder where all this info 'goes'. I refuse to believe it is just for social networking.

Secondcoming lol.

I'm quite sure there are nasty capitalists behind it all, but being on there wont make me buy any more coca cola.

pedrothellama I think that if you delete your account then the wondering is probably less. My dad deletes his account from time to time and that's just the way it is.

The person who deleted me recently though is someone who I see every day at school. I thought that maybe they were just having a cull too and then I noticed them commenting on other peoples' status updates so I realized that it was obviously just me. Strangely they haven't spoken to me in the playground since either, and i have no idea why.

Certainly not going to lose sleep over it but it's a bit bemusing.

What about mn? Is that a data gathering and marketing exercise too? After all people have similar information on their profiles here to that on their fb profiles, names, email addresses, pictures of their children...

I try to think of it as just a website. I've had a few bad experiences with people on it, but they are immature in RL too, so I don't think about them much.

Who are these people who think Facebook is an innocent lovely thing, set up by kind hearted internet geeks so we can share photos with our friends all over the world?

It exists because someone somewhere wants to make a lot of money out of it so of course it wants to gather your data. Frankly, what it thinks it will do with mine I have no idea and don't care. I don't have to respond to pop up ads, even if they are targetted at me.

If you don't like it and it makes you upset, don't use it. To put up anything on the internet that you want to keep 'private' is crazy and naive.

Quite Wannabe - all our information is all over the internet. MN is not different from FB - we still have our personal details all over it. I imagine that MN wouldn't sell info but they still sell advertising that fits the demographic of the people who use MN based on the info they have on us.

The obvious solution is not to put anything on there that you don't want anybody else to have. Besides, they can sell all the info they have on me and it won't make buy anything that I don't want. I barely notice the ads except to delete them so they are wasting their time with me.

And as for being deleted by people, bemused is a good word. As I said earlier, I wasn't upset about being deleted but I would still love to know why!!

I don't like facebook at all.

It is a cause of a lot of random angst.

I deleted my account about a year ago and don't miss it at all. Decided I was far better off being friends with my real actual friends in my real actual life.

Apart from you lot, of course. But then you are all imaginary, aren't you

MN is different from FB. We don't have half as much personal info on here as compared to FB, but in addition it is possible to draw quite a lot of conclusions on FB precisely based on the social networking aspect of it - for instance, even if you decline to state your sexuality, if you are friends with a lot of GLBT folks then it is much more likely that you also are GLBT. There's a lot of that sort of thing that can be concluded simply from the way you network with others on FB - ways that aren't even available on MN as the 'friend' concept isn't a key thing here.

Also all the silly games and so forth - they are not always very well secured, and they too can access aspects of your profile that you might think you are able to keep private. Those aren't even run with anybody with the (minimal) accountability that FB has.

There are things I like about FB and quite a few of my friends do use it quite a bit to share news, but I am considering whether I will keep it or not.

NB it's not that easy to actually permanently delete your account - a lot of people end up just deactivating it and thinking they've deleted it. Here's a link on how to do this thoroughly.

dittany - facebook only knows what you tell it. This is automatically going to be you social graph at least which does have value, but after that it's your choice. Just assume everything on it is public. I don't think we have very little functional privacy any more ANYWAY, and am increasingly on the opinion that we should abandon the idea and focus on ensuring that those in power are as open to scrutiny as the rest of us.

pedrothellama - why were you friends with someone you don't like?

Oojamaflip - exactly. You just have to make sure you use FB more than it uses you

Don't put anything on there that you wouldnt want your mum or your boss to read.

Put all your settings on max privacy- make sure you;re not publicly searchable (i.e don't search me, I'll find you).

Don't confuse FB friends with RL friends

Don't start or carry on personal disputes on FB- there are 2 guys I know who were business partners and who massively fell out and set up rival businesses. We've all relived it through their FB status's. They are both in their thirties and they both now look like idiots with no dignity.